Van Gogh House London

This text was donated by Willem-Jan Verlinden to the Van Gogh House in October 2021, to be published in conjuection with his lecture ‘How I Love London: Walking through the city with Anna and Vincent van Gogh’.

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Willem-Jan Verlinden (b. 1971) was born in the town of Helvoirt, went to school in ’s-Hertogenbosch, and studied art history in Leiden. Earlier this year his book ‘The Van Gogh Sisters’ was published by Thames & Hudson in the UK and the US, an extended version of the Dutch edition from 2016. Verlinden has also written about Van Gogh’s English years, co-authoring a book with Kristine Groenhart, ‘Hoe ik van Londen houd: Wandelen door het Londen van Vincent van Gogh’ (‘How I Love London: Walking through Vincent van Gogh’s London’, published in 2013.

Anna Carbentus, the mother of Vincent and his two brothers and three sisters, was born in 1819 in The Hague. Her father was a well-to-do bookbinder and she grew up in an upper middle class environment as part of a family of nine children. When she was young, she loved to draw and make aquarelles, mainly focusing on depicting flowers, a subject considered to be appropriate for the ladies of the time. Her family life was not without its troubles however; her sister Clara had a serious mental disorder and her father’s death was also considered to be due to some unclarified mental problem. It appears to have run in the family.

 

In her twenties, Anna seemed to be on track to becoming an old maid when she met Theodorus (Dorus) van Gogh, born in 1822. At the time, he had just finished his studies to become a reverend – just like his father. They were quickly married, and even though Dorus was known as ‘The Handsome Reverend’ he had trouble getting a stable appointment. They eventually settled in the village of Zundert, located in the predominantly Catholic province of Brabant, where Anna gave birth to a stillborn she named Vincent. In 1853, exactly one year after this traumatic event, she gave birth to the Vincent we all know today. He was the first of six children and is followed by Anna (1855), Theo (1857), Elisabeth or Lies for short (1859), Wilhelmina or Wil for short (1862), and Cornelis (1867).

 

They grow up in the old parsonage of Zundert, which functions as a little protestant bubble in an overwhelmingly Catholic environment. The children spend most of their time in and around the house, especially the big garden was a favourite, and only leave the house under strict supervision. The two oldest siblings, Anna and Vincent, are the only ones that actually start out at the public primary school, mainly attended by the children of the surrounding Catholic farmers. Both of them however, feel uncomfortable and all of the Van Gogh children are from then on educated at home by governesses and their father. All of the children look back at this time in Zundert with a lot of fondness, the house having become synonymous with a childhood filled with a simple intimacy between siblings, beautiful landscapes and a healthy reverence for God’s creation.

 

In 1870, Dorus Van Gogh is asked to a fill a position in the southern village of Helvoirt. Vincent has already left home at this point, working for the art dealer Goupil for which he is first based in The Hague and later in London. There is already a significant Protestant community in this new village and multiple members of the Van Gogh family live close by. In 1872, the oldest daughter Anna is sent to a boarding school in the northern Frisian city of Leeuwarden, but she never feels at home there. This becomes clear from the letters she writes to her family during this period. Interestingly enough she was forced to write these letters in English as she was studying this language. In 1874, Lies heads off to the same boarding school where she writes home as well, this time in French. The education of the girls is very costly, but their parents consider this a priority.

 

After boarding school, Anne travels to London with the intention of finding work, and she lives with Vincent until she finds a job as a teacher’s assistant in the village of Welwyn. She immensely enjoys living in England and is eventually joined by her youngest sister Wil who intends to study English. Back home, their father is asked to move again, this time to the southern village of Etten, where he is later reunited with Anna and Wil, both returning from England. In the meantime, Lies has switched boarding schools and eventually becomes a teacher, but she quickly discovers that this isn’t what she wants and she moves to the village of Soest to become a lady’s companion to the sick Mrs du Quesne – a decision that will shape the course of her life.

 

Anna takes up a similar position at the estate of the family Van Houten and quickly falls in love with the son Joan. Their marriage brings the whole Van Gogh family together, except for Theo who lives and works in Brussels, and who gets to hear the highlights through a letter written by his parents. Around this time, Vincent decides that he wants to become a reverend just like his father, but he also starts spending more time on his drawing. His time in Etten serves as an inspiration for a later painting, Memories of the Garden in Etten (1888), which features his mother and his sister Wil.

 

In 1882, father Van Gogh gets transferred once again, this time to the village of Nuenen. Vincent moves back to his parents’ momentarily when it becomes clear that he is not fit to become a reverend. During this period, he paints one of his most famous works: The Potato Eaters, inspired by the rural Catholic population he has been familiar with since his childhood. Willemien is the only sister living at home and she takes care of her aging parents. Their life in Nuenen will be overshadowed by one dramatic event: the death of their father Dorus Van Gogh, and the subsequent conflict between Anna and Vincent concerning the inheritance. Partially due to this, Vincent decides to move out of the house and out of the country, not knowing that he will never return to the Netherlands again.

 

Halfway through the 1880s, the middle brother Theo meets Jo Bonger, his future wife, who also quickly becomes an important friend for Lies. The two women begin a correspondence that will last for years. In these letters, they discuss literature, art and their personal troubles, and these documents are an important window into the everyday lives of these women. Later on, Jo takes on an even more important role when she becomes the most important advocate, promoter and proprietor of Vincent’s work. Both Lies and Wil have creative aspirations: Lies becomes an avid poet and Wil tries to become a writer. Together with their brothers, they display an enthusiastic engagement with the cultural climate of the day and in their correspondences they discuss writers like Dickens, Eliot, the Brontë sisters, Beecher-Stowe, Whitman, Zola and De Maupassant.

 

In personal and financial distress after Dad’s passing, Ma and Willemien move to the city of Breda, also in the southern province of Brabant. Within Breda, mother and daughter move several times over a short period of time. In one of these migrations, Ma and Wil lose several crates of Vincent’s early works and painting supplies. In letters to his mother and his sister, Vincent refers to the crates as ‘that rubbish’. Years later, when Vincent’s reputation had started to grow posthumously, the family tried to retrieve the crates – without success. Eventually Ma and Wil move from Breda to the city of Leiden, in the province of South-Holland. The last Van Gogh has now left Brabant. Meanwhile, it comes to light that Lies is carrying Mr Du Quesne’s child. To avoid a scandal – as Mrs Du Quesne is very ill, but still alive – Lies travels to Normandy to give birth. The child is handed over to a young widow in the village. Lies eventually heads back to Soest and resumes her care for Mrs Du Quesne as if nothing has happened.

 

Theo and his wife Jo are expecting their first baby and have settled in Paris. Wil comes to live with them for a while to help out with the baby, but also because she wants to live in the most exciting city at the time: fin-de-siècle Paris. Together they visit the studio of Edgar Degas who apparently is quite charmed by Wil. She is also witness to the preparations for the Exposition Universelle in 1899, including the newly erected Eiffel tower.

 

Throughout the years a regular correspondence between Vincent and his youngest sister Wil takes place. She would later be regarded as Vincent’s ‘favourite’ sister. They were very close and opened up to each other in open-hearted letters. Vincent would talk about his projects: he mentions that he is working on a painting with some sunflowers and wonders how it will turn out… Vincent also mentions the paintings The Starry Night and Café Terrace at Night in this correspondence. Some paintings, like Almond Blossom, are even dedicated to Wil. Not only do they talk about art, but they also discuss their mental health, something with which they both struggle. 

 

Back in Leiden, Wil starts working as a nurse, but soon gives up and goes back to school to become a teacher in religious education. Meanwhile, the news arrives in the Netherlands that Vincent has cut off his ear and is admitted into a mental institution. Ma and Wil are very concerned. Vincent dies on July 29th, 1890, by suicide: a shot through the chest. Theo delivers the news to his mother and sister in Leiden. What follows are many letters of condolences from famous Dutch and French painters including the painter Émile Bernard who writes a letter in which he describes Vincent’s funeral. An important detail is the fact that the coffin was put to earth with sunflowers on top. Around the same time, Theo’s health is declining and only six months after Vincent’s death, Theo dies from the complications of syphilis. When Mrs Du Quesne dies as well, Lies can finally marry the man she has been having an affair with for years. The new marriage is a fruitful one: they have four children.

 

Wil, having had a short career as a religious teacher, moves to The Hague where she joins the First Feminist Wave of the Netherlands. She meets and socialises with Alleta Jacobs, the most well-known face of the feminist movement in the Netherlands. Wil becomes a member of the Ladies’ Reading Museum, the first library for women. This group’s efforts resulted in the National Exhibition of Women’s Labour in 1898. These initiatives were the first visible signs of the impending women’s emancipation in the Netherlands. Although her professional and social lives were thriving, Wil’s mental health was declining. She shows signs of manic behaviour, depression, and is struggling with suicidal thoughts.

 

The new century starts out badly for Ma and the sisters. Brother Cor shoots himself in an army hospital while being a prisoner of war during the Second Boer War in South Africa and Willemien is committed to an asylum in the east of the Netherlands, where she will stay for the rest of her life (until 1941). Anna and Lies write about Wil on a regular basis. Mr Du Quesne and Lies are having financial difficulties and the times are so bad that Lies has to sell the estate when Mr Du Quesne dies and later on even has to part with some paintings by Vincent, who is slowly becoming a more influential and popular artist posthumously.

 

Meanwhile, Lies tries to develop her literary aspirations into a career. She publishes several books of poetry, and in 1910 publishes a memoir under the title Memories of Her Brother. The fact that Lies uses her brother’s life for the sake of her literary career does not sit well with the rest of the family and creates a rift between them. It is mainly Jo Bonger, the widow of Theo, who is annoyed at Lies, because she has become the informal guardian of Vincent’s legacy and is working on bundling Vincent’s letters to Theo in one publication. She does not have financial gain at heart, as her sister in law does.

 

All this time, Anna and Joan have been living quietly in Leiden together with their daughters. Anna lives a real housewife’s life: her main concerns are the household and the garden. Ma dies in 1907 and is buried in Leiden. In 1930, Anna dies as well. Lies, in the meantime, has become poorer and lives from pension to pension. At the end of her life, she tries to get in contact with her lost daughter in Normandy, but the woman doesn’t wish to see her. Lies dies in 1936, poor and unsuccessful as a writer. Wil is now the last remaining Van Gogh sibling. She dies in the asylum in 1941 and only leaves some china, some jewelry and some of Vincent’s drawings. At this point a significant amount of Vincent’s paintings had been sold by the sisters, partially to pay for Wil’s stay at the asylum. Vincent Willem, the son of Theo and Jo, inherits the remaining ones and later becomes one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

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